Despite its bad rap, blood sugar is an integral part of your body chemistry. When it’s functioning like it should be, your blood sugar is responsible for giving you an abundance of energy and a healthy, thriving immune system. When it isn’t, however, you’re left feeling like a sluggish psychopath with serious hanger management issues. Maintaining balanced blood sugar levels doesn’t have to be difficult.
A few lifestyle changes and ingredient switches will ensure you never have to apologize for what you said when you were hangry again. Here are five ways to make sure your blood sugar is always kept in check, keep reading to learn more!
7 Ways To Always Keep Your Blood Sugar Under Control
1) Eat breakfast, and make it fatty!
Flo Living creator Alissa Vitti recommends starting the day with a good-sized, protein-rich and fat-packed breakfast and says that this is essential for maintaining healthy blood sugar levels throughout the course of the entire day. It restocks your depleted glycogen stores from your overnight fast and promises to properly fuel you for the day ahead.
2) Caffeine
We know as well as the next person that caffeine is a busy professional’s kryptonite. Nothing eases you into the day quite like a warming cup of caffienated goodness, but it could be having adverse consequences on your blood sugar. With that sought-after caffiene-hit inevitably comes a post-coffee slump, which is a direct consequence of your blood sugar being outta whack. Herbal tea, anyone?
3) Add Magnesium to your supplement stack
Low magnesium levels are common in people who have a poor blood sugar response. This is due to a lack of magnesium in their diet and poor blood sugar response, which causes them to lose more magnesium in their urine.
Magnesium deficiency, on the other hand, worsens everything because magnesium inside your cells influences insulin activity and glucose uptake.
As a result, magnesium supplementation can promote healthy insulin response by replenishing the body’s magnesium stores.
We love supplementing with Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers because it contains all 7 different forms of highly absorbed magnesium and is great for;
- Supporting healthy insulin response
- Improving carbohydrate metabolism
- Increasing uptake of blood glucose by muscles
- Promoting healthy blood sugar levels
4) Fiber, fiber, fiber
Our favorite F word! (okay, top 3) Eating lots of fibre with every meal is great for reduced blood sugars as it helps to slow down the absorption of sugar by the body. This slow release into the bloodstream, means less of a dastardly insulin spike. Fibre also increases nutrient absorption, which means foods like black beans, lentils and a hell of a load of greens should become a mainstay of your diet.
5) Carbs: slow and low (GI) is the go
You probably know by now, but not all carbs are created equal. High GI carbs such as rice cakes, white bread and most breakfast cereals are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, which creates a spike in blood sugar, followed by a plummet and a slump. Switching your carbs to lower GI options such as quinoa, wild rice and beans will prevent this dip, meaning you’ll feel fuller for longer and are less likely to suffer an attack of the LBSB (Low Blood Sugar Bitch. Hey, you’re not you when you’re hungry!)
6) Snack attack
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. If you know you tend to have a recurring 3pm hankering for a little summin’ summin’ from the vending machine; anticipate it by packing some blood sugar friendly snacks. Energy balls, nuts and seeds or some hummus and chopped veggies are the perfect choices to have on hand in order to beat your usual afternoon slump.
7) Rest
You’re probs bored to the back teeth of hearing about the health benefits of adequate rest and sleep, but it is essential for maintaining stable blood sugar levels. Plus, if you’re fatigued, you’re also more likely to reach for sugary or caffienated foods and drinks to perk you up. And as already established, this will wreak havoc on your blood sugar balance.
8) The balancing act
Amodrn’s resident nutritionist, Emma Cronin contends that the key to eating for slow release energy is simply to eat meals with a good balance of ingredients. This includes a mixture of good carbs to give you sustained energy, protein to provide that feeling of fullness, healthy fats for an energy-dense hit and fibre to slow down the release of carbs and sugar into the bloodstream.
